Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Internet: You Have Options

Hey kids!

If you own a blog (let's call it Blog 1) and your blog posts are getting lots of spam-like backlinks from another blog (let's go into creativity overdrive and call it Blog 2), one of whose blogrolls features Blog 1, you have some options.

One thing you could do is try and contact the owner of Blog 2 to report the problem and try to resolve it. If an email address isn't listed on Blog 2, you could leave a comment on Blog 2's most recent post, noting the issue and asking Blog 2's owner to get in touch. Chances are, if Blog 2 isn't some kind of, oh I don’t know, let's coin a phrase here, "douche spam blog," the owner may not be aware of the problem and will take steps to remedy it, since the owner presumably would not want his blogging status/reputation (such as it is) damaged by appearing to be, again for lack of a better term, a "douche." Problem solved, misunderstandings minimized, etc.

Or.

You could wait for what seems to be months, deleting unwanted backlinks from posts and casting private aspersions on Blog 2 through gritted teeth. Then, after an unusually heavy barrage of backlinks, which understandably would be very annoying, you could post identical comments on three posts on Blog 2, identifying same as a "douche spam blog." Simultaneous with that, you could take to your Twitter account and ask your Twitter friends to report Blog 2 to the blog host as a spammer. Sample concluding text could be "Help me out [because] he's kind of a douche." When the shocked owner of Blog 2, having reviewed his comments and Twitter feed, subsequently corresponds with you on the theme of "Holy shit sorry about that I'll look into this and de-link your site but why didn't you tell me earlier and dude what's up with the whole 'douche' thing and Twitter DUDE," you could assure Blogger 2 that his shock has worn off, everybody will forget about this by tomorrow and besides, you yourself have been called much worse.

You could do all that, provided you understand that Blogger 2 is still shocked, the Internet is forever, and whatever you may have been called is irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Stay classy, Blog 1. For the rest of you (and I include myself in this), just because you think it or even type it up doesn't mean you have to click Send/Submit/Post/Flame/Destroy All Monsters.